The locksmith who spent £200,000 trying to be cast as James Bond: “People took the piss”
The most basic requirement to be cast as James Bond is to be an actor. After that, all bets are off. Unless you happen to be a locksmith with a ludicrous amount of disposable income to burn, in which case you can spend a fortune trying to secure a role you’re never going to get.
The closest thing to an unknown 007 there’s ever been is George Lazenby, and things didn’t go too well for him. Sean Connery was hardly famous, but he still had a few credits under his belt before he was hired as the first big-screen iteration of Ian Fleming’s literary creation, with the rest all experienced performers.
Quite why Roger Barton Smith thought he’d be able to wrangle the part away from any number of talented thespians is a mystery, other than the fact that he fancied a go. He’d been a successful locksmith and owned his own business, but in his mid-30s, he decided to try something completely different.
Setting his sights on cinema, Smith turned his attentions toward acting because “it was the biggest challenge I could find.” What he ended up with was a very minor role as a driver in a TV series called The Ambassador, and when an assistant director told him he’d “make a great Bond,” a light bulb went off in his head.
It was an open secret that Pierce Brosnan’s days were effectively numbered post-Die Another Day, so it wasn’t the most fanciful thing Smith had ever heard. To prove himself, he ended up spending £120,000 on a short film called Black Velvet, which was made solely to showcase how suave he looked in a tux and that he was the perfect candidate to step into the breach as Bond.
That didn’t go to plan, so he sent a CV to Eon Productions, which probably isn’t how the casting search usually works, and then he went method: “I had to actually become James Bond,” he recalled. “I went out and bought every Bond movie and watched them all and learnt his mannerisms, his poses and his lines. I bought books on Bond and absorbed every fact and figure.”
Burning through even more cash, he hired a photographer for a three-day photoshoot in Austria, which included “an action sequence scenario with armed villains closing in on us.” With 1800 snaps in the bag, he picked the best six and sent them off to Eon. His bizarre desire to become Bond captured the attention of the local media, and he even became a minor tabloid sensation for a while.
“At first, people took the piss,” Smith admitted, for obvious reasons. “But then when they saw how serious I was and checked out the pictures on my website, the laughing stopped.” Did it, though? Did it really? He sent another note, this time a signed photo of Sean Connery with the message, ‘Don’t give the job away until you’ve talked to me’, to Barbara Broccoli, and felt his heart break when Daniel Craig was cast in Casino Royale.
At the end of the day, what did Smith have to show for it? “I’d wiped out my life savings and spent over £200,000 in my quest to become 007.” Still, he didn’t regret it, explaining that he “felt happier broke than I ever did when I had money” because he’d “taken a chance and chased a dream.” Fiscally irresponsible, yes, but at least he had fun while his far-fetched dream was still perched on the farthest edge of the table.
